About Me

Monday, March 7, 2016

THE MARK IN AMERICA, ISSUE #2, PAGE 4

With this page we are
introduced to Lisle, The Mark’s future love interest. Initially, I based her
off of Ingrid Bergman.

As was my practice, I rented the laser disc to
“Notorious” and spent the night sketching freeze frames, then penciled the
issue working from my sketches. Her father, Janos Burovnik (you’ll meet him on
tomorrow’s page) is also based off Ingrid, only turned into a man, aged 30
years, etc. Somebody asked me if I was going for Murphy Anderson; I was not.
(At the time, I’d never seem Mr. A., had no idea what he looked like.)

In any case, as I completed
pencils on issue #2 I had the inspiration to go in a more Ruebenesque direction
with Lisle’s design. I asked my editor, Bob Schreck, and the writer, Mike Barr,
for their approval, and they acceded to my desire. I’ve included the before and
after versions.

My motive for making this
casting decision was, I wanted to be PC. Through my husband, John Callahan, I
was friends with several Lesbians of Size, and it struck me as unfair that they
should be unrepresented in the media. Then I had to figure out how to draw
obese-yet-attractive women; I rented a couple Rosanne Barr movies and sketched
her off of them, and I found of a copy of “The Honeymoon Killers” and sketched
the movie’s star, Shirley Stoller.Following Mike Barr’s advice, I went to the local newsstand and found
copies of fashion magazines for women of size (I don’t recall their names).
Looking at the results today, I think I erred on the side of realism. You can
judge for yourself over the ensuing days. Interestingly, Valiant Comics is mining
the same lode with their “Zephyr” character.

I’m also including the page
as colored (by John A. Wilcox). I was extremely unhappy with the published
work; most of my friends had no idea what bothered me about it. One observation
was that the colors were “pretty”. Perhaps, but they didn’t tell the story. The
colorist seemed to have no concept of value or how to direct the eye with
contrast. This page is a good example of my point.

This is page 4 for "The Mark" issue 2,
volume 2, otherwise known as "The Mark In America", published by Dark
Horse Comics in January 1994. Written by Mike Barr, drawn by Brad Rader.